The Russian language is one of the most diverse and rich in the world, its expressive potential is truly huge. Various means of verbal expressiveness used in the process of writing a work give particular emotionality and originality to the text. Their list is quite extensive.
Means of verbal expressiveness in various spheres of life
It is no secret that the same idea can be presented in different ways. For example, a television announcer would say this: "Today, heavy rainfall in the form of snow was observed in the region, accompanied by a gale of wind." And two old women, drinking tea in the kitchen, can use the following phrase in a conversation: “Yeah, it piled like snow! And a windfall - and knocks you down! ” In fiction, this phenomenon can be represented as follows: "Snow flakes poured from the sky, like fluff from an open pillow, swept by a strong wind, and huge white snowdrifts covered the yearning for frozen ground ...". The picture described in different ways is almost the same, but each of the options differs from each other and affects the human subconscious in different ways. All means of verbal expressiveness of a language are, to one degree or another, based on the associative perception of the text. Looking through the presented statements, the reader introduces people who can express themselves like that. Therefore, to characterize the characters, create a certain color by the authors of literary texts, different styles are used.
Phonetic means of expression
For the greatest impact on the imagination of the interlocutor or reader, viewer or listener, a variety of methods are used. Means of verbal expressiveness literally permeate all language levels. They can be observed both in phonetics and in syntax, which makes the understanding of the author’s intention deeper and more comprehensive. Phonetic means of speech expression are one of the most powerful ways of speech exposure. The feeling of the sound image of a word occurs at the level of the subconscious, regardless of the person’s desire. That is why most poetic texts are based on the use of sound means of expression. An example is the following sentence: "The leaves rustled, their rustling seemed to go from everywhere." Here, the repeated use of the sound "w" in the phrase seems to create an accompaniment to the picture drawn by the imagination.
Alliteration
Phonetic speech expressiveness has some variability. Contrasted means such as alliteration and assonance are widespread. They are based on the repetition in the text of sounds identical or similar in some phonetic characteristic — consonants during alliteration and vowels during assonance. A vivid example of alliteration is the phrase “A thunder-storm rattles, a thunder rumbles”, reading which, a person subconsciously evokes a bright image of crackling lightning in front of him.
Assonance
Writers and poets are slightly less likely to use vowels. For example, the assonance is presented in the sentence “There was a flat field around” - the repeated sound “o” creates a feeling of extension, breadth of space.
Anaphora, epiphora in literary texts
There are other figures of speech that serve to give greater expressiveness to the text. For example, anaphora and epiphora are unusual tricks. They represent the repetition of similar sounds, words or groups of words at the beginning (anaphora) or at the end (epiphora) of each parallel independent segment of speech. “This is an act of a man! This is the act of a real person! ” - injection and amplification with each repetition are observed with anaphora. Epiphora can most often be found at the end of poetic segments in the form of a repetition of individual phrases or whole sentences. But you can consider it with the example of a separate prosaic sentence: “Everything in this room was black: the walls were black, the palace on the floor was also black, the lamps were black and even the linen was cast in black. And only the bed was pure white, creating a vivid contrast in the design. "
Language Means of Speech Expression: Allegory
In the style of the Russian language a huge number of diverse pathways, or figures of speech, are represented. The main source of expressiveness is vocabulary. It is with its help that most of the author’s intentions in the text are realized. For example, allegory is a kind of transfer of the value or characteristics of an object to another object, an image of an abstract concept through a specific image. To explain what allegory is, one can resort to considering traditional examples: the sun is a symbol of warmth, kindness; the wind is a symbol of freedom, freethinking, inconstancy. Therefore, this principle is often used in speech to characterize people. “Oh you sly fox!” - they say joking about someone. Or they might even say about the inconsistent personality like this: "His character is windy, unbalanced." Thus, in answering the question of what allegory is, one should refer to symbolism, a comparison of objects in quality.
Allegory in parables, tales, fables
The wonderful fabulist Krylov gives a colorful picture of the use of this technique. Although in fact he is a successor to Aesop. It was from his works that many plots of fables of the Russian classic were taken. After all, everyone understands that when speaking of a monkey trying on glasses on its tail, the author means ignoramus, a person who is used to treating everything superficially, judging hastily without thinking about the meaning. For children's perception, fairy tales in which animals act as heroes are best suited. On their example, the kid learns the basic laws of life: good returns handsomely, dirty, a liar and a lazy person will be punished, you can’t laugh at someone else’s pain, etc. Short fables or allegorical tales resemble Caucasian style toasts at the end of which morality is displayed after the sentence drink "For ...".
Allegory in poetry and lyric songs
And what about Lermontov’s wonderful poems about a lonely sail running along the waves? After all, here the thoughtful reader is drawn to the mental state of a restless personality, which no one understands in his modern world. Until now, adults love many folk songs in which human relations are described allegorically with examples of plants - flowers, trees. "What are you standing, swinging, thin rowan?" - a girl sings sadly, who herself feels loneliness, dreams of combining her fate with a reliable person, but for some reason she cannot do this ...
Litota, hyperbole
Linguistic means of verbal expressiveness are also represented by other paths. For example, there are also such opposite figures as hyperbole, litota. Russian language has a wide range of possibilities of gradual expression of qualities. These techniques indicate artistic understatement (litota) and exaggeration (hyperbole). The Russian language is becoming brighter and more imaginative thanks to them. For example, such a property as the volume of the human body can be expressed both from the artificially understated side ("waist the width of the neck of the bottle" - litota), and from the side of exaggeration ("shoulders the size of the doorway" - a hyperbole). The Russian language can even boast of stable expressions of this type: aspen waist, tall as the Kolomna verst.
Synonyms and antonyms in fiction
The use of synonyms and antonyms in the text increases its emotionality and expressiveness. Words, semantically similar or different, diversify the work, reveal the author’s intention from different angles. In addition, synonyms and antonyms simplify the perception of the text, as they clarify the meaning of individual semantic objects. But their use in oral and written speech should be approached with some caution, since some dictionary synonyms lose the closeness of meanings in a specific context, and contextual antonyms are not always antonymic in their main vocabulary meaning. For example, the adjectives “fresh” and “stale” when used with the noun “bread” are antonyms. But, if we are talking about the wind, then the word “warm” will be the antonym to the adjective “fresh”.
The irony in fiction
A very important means of artistic expression is irony. Examples from the literature prove the high imagery of this technique. Pushkin, Lermontov, Dostoevsky - these Russian classics are real masters of the use of irony in literature. Zoshchenko's stories are still in demand among modern satirists. Some phrases of classics that have become winged are also used in everyday speech. For example, Zoshchenkovsky expression: "Take back your cake!" or "Maybe you still have to give the keys to the apartment, where the money is?" Ilf and Petrov know absolutely everything. And the appeal to the gentlemen of the jury, which refers to the ice breaking, is still perceived with a great deal of irony. And the phrase “Who is so big here?”, Addressed to the child in everyday life, has an ironic character, built on the use of antonyms. The irony is often present in the form of banter on itself of one of the characters or the main character, on behalf of whom the narration is being conducted. Those are the detectives of Daria Dontsova and other authors who also write in this style.
Different layers of vocabulary in fiction
High expressive potential in fiction has irregular vocabulary - jargon, neologism, dialecticism, professionalism, vernacular. The use of words from these sections in the text, especially in direct speech, gives a figurative and evaluative characterization of the character. Each character of a literary work is individual, and these lexical elements, neatly and appropriately used, reveal the character's image from various sides. For example, the saturation of Sholokhov’s novel “Quiet Don” with dialectic vocabulary creates an atmosphere characteristic of a specific territory and a specific historical period. And the use in speech of characters of vernacular words and expressions reveals their characters as well as possible. It is also impossible to do without special professional vocabulary, describing life on the ship. And in works where the heroes, albeit secondary ones, are former repressed or people from the category of homeless people, it is simply impossible to avoid jargon and even argo.
Multi-union as a means of expression
Another stylistic figure of speech is polysindeton. In another way, this technique is called multi-union and consists in using homogeneous members or phrases in the text connected by identical repeating unions. This increases expressiveness, creating unplanned pauses in the sentence at the places of connection of its parts with the service parts of speech and increasing the importance of each enumeration element. Therefore, writers and poets often use multi-union in their works. Examples:
- "The sea storm was noisy, and tore, and swayed, and crushed, and frightened" - each element of a number of homogeneous members here has emphasized importance.
- “In Natalia’s house, every thing was in its place: a bunch of keys, an armchair with a bright, self-knitted cloak, a huge floor vase with dry branches of some plant, even an open book - everything is always at the same place at any time of the day "- here, every homogeneous member with the help of a multi-union reinforces the impression of accuracy and clarity of the arrangement of objects in the heroine’s home.
- “And the wind blew, and the thunder boomed, and the branches of the trees wavered, knocking at the windows, and the clouds covered the sky with black waves - all this frightened, instilled excitement and forced to pull the blanket all the way to the chin” - here uniform offers, together with multi-union create an amplification effect states of fear and hopelessness.
Thus, linguistic means of verbal expressiveness are a necessary element of artistic speech. Without them, the literary text looks dry and uninteresting. But do not forget that the material should be reader-oriented. Therefore, the selection of language tools used in the work should be carried out in the most thorough manner, otherwise the author risks being misunderstood and underestimated.